Escape from the Planet of the Apes
| running time = 98 min. | country = USA | language = English | budget = $2,500,000 IMDB; Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971); Box office/Business | gross revenue = $12,300,000 (US) IMDB; Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971); Box office/Business | preceded by = Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) | followed by = Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) }} Escape from the Planet of the Apes is an American science fiction film directed by Don Taylor. It is the third film in the Planet of the Apes franchise and follows 1970's Beneath the Planet of the Apes. A sequel film, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes was released in 1972. The movie was produced by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Arthur P. Jacobs' APJAC Productions and released theatrically in the United States on May 21st, 1971. The film reunites classic actors Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter and also stars Bradford Dillman, Natalie Trundy, Ricardo Montalban and Eric Braeden. Although the ending to Beneath the Planet of the Apes made the prospects of a sequel seem nearly impossible, Twentieth Century Fox demanded another sequel to the runaway smash franchise and pressure was put upon screenwriter Paul Dehn to develop a means of continuing the story despite having already blown up the entire planet in the previous installment. Dehn took the thematic elemnents of the first Planet of the Apes film and turned them around, establishing that three chimpanzee characters, Zira, Cornelius and a new character named Doctor Milo had found a way to salvage astronaut George Taylor's space vessel and use it to not only escape their world, but also to find a way backwards through time to the then near-future year of 1973. Now, Zira and Cornelius know how Taylor felt as they become the subjects of concern and curiosity among the upper echelons of the government and the military. Whereas Taylor had been hunted and reviled however, the ape-o-nauts become overnight celebrities; that is until the government learns that Zira is pregnant. Could the offspring of two time-lost apes spell certain doom for Earth's future? Plot The preceding film, 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes', ends with a nuclear weapon's destruction of the apes' future Earth itself and everything on it. 'Escape from the Planet of the Apes' begins by establishing that three chimpanzee apes, Cornelius (Roddy McDowall), Zira (Kim Hunter), and Dr. Milo (Sal Mineo) escaped the Earth's destruction by salvaging and repairing the astronaut Taylor's spaceship (which sank in the Dead Lake in the desert Forbidden Zone in the first movie) and piloting it through the nuclear shock wave of Earth's destruction, sending the ship into space and through a time warp wormhole back to present day 1973. The salvage, repair and launch of Taylor's spaceship apparently all happened (off-camera) within the brief period during the final act of the previous film. The three apes arrive on Earth, splashing down on the Pacific coast near Los Angeles. They are found by the surprised local authorities and are transported to a secluded area of the Los Angeles Zoo, under the observation of two scientists, Stephanie Branton (Natalie Trundy) and Lewis Dixon (Bradford Dillman), who administer a series of intelligence tests, which Zira performs unerringly, but she finally loses her patience at the end of the last one and answers Stephanie's question to Lewis with an angry retort. Stephanie and Lewis step outside, completely astonished. Milo argues with Zira and Cornelius about their agreement to hide their ability to speak until they felt the time was right. The argument agitates a wild gorilla on the opposite side of a set of bars in the cages. Milo steps too close to these bars and the wild gorilla reaches through them and strangles Milo to death. Meanwhile, a Presidential Commission has been formed to investigate the return of Taylor's spaceship which was launched the previous year and how the apes, which they already are aware are atypically intelligent, came to be aboard it. Cornelius and Zira are brought before the Presidential Commission, where they publicly reveal their ability to speak, and are welcomed as guests. They tell the commission about their planet in the future which is future Earth, about the apes way of life, but they deny knowing Taylor or anyone else that crash landed on their world. Over the next several weeks, the two apes become celebrities, being lavished with presents and media attention as well as staying in a fancy hotel suite. They come to the attention of the President's Science Advisor Dr. Otto Hasslein (Eric Braeden), who discovers Zira is pregnant and fears for the future of the human race after Zira had earlier told the commission about the growing dominance of apes to be set in the near future. Determined to force the issue, he gets her drunk on champagne (which he assures her is harmless, calling it "grape juice plus"). The resulting interrogation enables him to convince the Commission that Cornelius and Zira must be subjected to more rigorous questioning. Both chips are brought to a top secret military base are questioned using various means of interrogation; during this time, one of Hasslein's assistants refers to the apes as "monkeys", stirring Cornelius' anger. Hasslein defuses it, saying they simply want to know how apes rose in dominance over men. Under interrogation, Cornelius reveals that according to the historic archive books and scrolls in their ape society of the future, the human race will eventually meet its downfall in the late 20th Century after a plague wiped out all domestic cats and dogs of humans and that humanity adopted apes as household pets which they turned into slaves and that a militant ape, known only as 'Aldo', led a slave revolt and the world was soon dominated by the simians, which will, many centuries later, lead to the surface of Earth's destruction through nuclear war and anarchy in the year 3955. However, there are still suspicions about how humans are treated by the future apes when Cornelius and Zira continue to deny knowing Taylor or talk about how humans are treated in their world. Suspicion had already been aroused by Zira letting it slip, during her drunken interrogation by Dr. Hasslein, that she had dissected humans in the course of her scientific work. Hasslein orders Lewis to administer a truth serum to her, while Cornelius is taken to confinement quarters. Lewis warns Zira that the serum will have the same effect as the champagne Hasslein convinced her to drink earlier. As a result of the serum, Hasslein learns for himself that Zira examined and operated on humans in the future and indeed knew Taylor as well as Barnes who also arrived on their planet. Zira is taken to join Cornelius in confinement while the paranoid Hasslein takes his findings to the U.S. President (William Windom) who insists to the President that the apes are a danger to the human race. A little later, an orderly bringing food refers to the unborn child as a "little monkey"; Cornelius has heard enough of the epithet and knocks the tray out of the orderly's hands and bashes him on the head with the tray, and uses this advantage to escape from the military base. At first, Cornelius thinks that he has only knocked the orderly unconscious, but he is later stunned to overhear that the man died. Hasslein uses the orderly's death and of Cornelius and Zira's escape as an illustration of the future danger the apes present and calls for the apes' execution. The president reluctantly orders that the unborn child's birth be terminated and that both chimpanzees be sterilized or killed. Running for their lives, Cornelius and Zira (assisted by Stephanie and Lewis) find shelter in a circus run by a Mexican national named Señor Armando (Ricardo Montalbán), where an ape named Heloise has just had a baby. There Zira gives birth to a son, whom she names Milo (later known as Caesar). Hasslein, knowing Zira will imminently give birth, orders a search of all circuses and zoos. As a result, Armando must send the apes away. Armando, Lewis and Stephanie provide them with maps and help them plan to hide until such time as they can escape into the Florida Everglades to live the rest of their lives in peace. In case they are discovered, Lewis gives Cornelius a pistol to use as a last resort. Zira asks to say goodbye to Heloise before they leave. Hasslein tracks the apes down to an abandoned ship in Long Beach harbor, and finds Zira resting with her infant. Hasslein shoots Zira in cold blood after she refuses to hand over her infant and then proceeds to fire several shots into the infant. Hasslein is immediately shot to death by Cornelius, and falls overboard. After Cornelius kills Hasslein, he is shot by several Marine Corps snipers and, as Stephanie and Lewis watch helplessly from the shore, falls to his death onto the poop deck of the ship. Zira tosses her dead baby over the side of the ship before crawling to lie with her husband and dying by his side. But in the final scene in a surprising plot twist, Stephanie, Lewis and the other humans are unaware of the real fate of the infant ape. Earlier, Cornelius, Zira, and Armando switched babies with Heloise before their escape from the circus. Armando now watches over the infant Milo as the circus is being moved to a new location. Armando remarks how intelligent that the baby chimp is who will now survive with him at his circus. The final shot shows the baby ape Milo sitting in a cage, plaintively speaking the words "Mama? Mama?" with the voice of a human child. Cast Notes & Trivia * The tagline for this film is "Meet Baby Milo who has Washington terrified". * This film is included on the Planet of the Apes: The Evolution DVD boxset collection. * Escape from the Planet of the Apes was released on Blu-ray on November 4th, 2008 by Twentieth Century Fox Home Video. * Escape from the Planet of the Apes is the only film in the series that does not feature orangutans. * The character of Greg Hartley is identified only as an aide to General Winthrop in this film. His name is derived from Escape from the Planet of the Apes novelization by Jerry Pournelle. * Actors Bradford Dillman and Eric Braeden have appeared in several film and television projects together including episodes of The New Adventures of Wonder Woman. They also appeared together in the 1978 Joe Dante predatory animal film Piranha. Whereas Dillman took the lead role in the film, Braeden had a more minimalized involvement. He served as the swimming double for actor Kevin McCarthy during the scenes where he is trying to escape from a school of mutant piranha. Related pages * Escape from the Planet of the Apes characters * Escape from the Planet of the Apes locations * Escape from the Planet of the Apes actors * Escape from the Planet of the Apes crew members * Escape from the Planet of the Apes image gallery * Escape from the Planet of the Apes miscellaneous See also External Links * * Escape from the Planet of the Apes at Wikipedia * Escape from the Planet of the Apes DVD review * Escape from the Planet of the Apes at Stomp Tokyo * Escape from the Planet of the Apes at AllRovi.com * Escape from the Planet of the Apes at the POTA Wiki * Escape from the Planet of the Apes at Box Office Mojo * Escape from the Planet of the Apes at Rotten Tomatoes * Escape from the Planet of the Apes at the Optimus Prime Experiment References ---- Category:Films Category:1971/Films Category:May, 1971/Films Category:3rd installments Category:Sequels Category:APJAC Productions Category:Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation